I just completed a two week bikepacking trip through central Vermont and southeastern New England for my yearly “Excellent Adventure” bikepacking trip. In addition to this being an excellent adventure, it was ostensibly a test to see whether I am kidding myself about riding cross county next year. After riding nearly every day for two weeks and covering nearly 800 miles, am I kidding myself? Read on to find out…

I left Wellfleet on 17 July and arrived back in Annapolis on 2 August for a total of 17 days with 14 riding days, 767 miles and 58 hours pedaling. For the first solo part to Burlington, I camped every night. The second part with Discovery was also camping three of five nights and the final Tour de Family was couch surfing. For a detailed description of the trip see the blow by blow in the prior three posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Everyone I’ve talked to about long distance riding says the first week is the hardest and I certainly experienced that with my 6 day ride to Connecticut last summer, and as I reflected on after that ride, I felt like I needed a day off after a week of riding. That’s as far as I went so had no idea how things would go for after that, so the main goal of this trip was to cover 50-70 miles a day for at least two weeks to see how my body would respond. Would I break physically and/or mentally? Based on prior experience, the way I think of a long trip is essentially a series of weeklong rides; I would have liked to go even another week to see if that was true, but even retired guys have schedules to keep…

So how did it go? A few days into the trip I was thinking, wow no way I can do this for 10 weeks, my estimate for a cross country trip using the Great American Rail Trail (GART) route. This point was what one might call the “depths of despair”. But I just kept on pedaling, focusing on the task at hand the next day, getting into the daily routine of waking early, packing up, riding, unpacking, sleeping, rinse and repeat. While the terrain and the stops every day were different, there’s a certain comfort in that routine, especially solo. Furthermore, as an extraverted introvert, I really did enjoy that solo time and I literally had only a few transactional conversations at stores and campgrounds for 5 days. This doesn’t bother me and at least for a week I wasn’t lonely. But after 6 days I was ready for a little company. I very much enjoyed a day of socializing in Burlington. This really broke up the ride and kept the monotony at bay. As I explore the cross country ride, I hope I can work in sections of the trip with friends to help break it up, as the parts of this experience that included other people did.

I was always antsy to continue my bikepacking trip after stopping for more than a day and to get back into the daily routine and it felt good to be moving with a purposeful destination. So that bodes well for my idea of a series of weeklong rides. Interestingly on day nine, my body kind of woke up and everything that was tired and sore just started to work again and I was full of pep. This was a good sign confirming what people say happens as you start to get stronger. While the last part of the trip I was not camping, I rather missed that routine and the consistency of sleeping in my tent. I am very comfortable with my setup and I found sleeping in different places disorienting. This is not only the case bikepacking but in general, which is one reason I like traveling in my van (familiar surroundings).

I have a number take aways from this trip that make me much more comfortable with contemplating a cross country trip next year using the Great American Rail Trail route. Some of these are better understood after reading the full blow by blow of the trip, but here’s a list:

• Even if you are prepared physically, the first week will be hard both physically and mentally, just don’t let it get to you. Like Dori in Finding Nemo, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling.
• I am convinced the way to think about this is a series of 10 one week trips. That seems to be about the best detailed planning horizon that won’t have too much domino effect if something goes sideways. Plus you can take a “0” or an easy day once a week.
• My camping gear is great. I might need a new pad as mine is losing a little air and I need a second pillow. But the tent and sleeping bag are excellent and I have a great process honed.
• I need to get more comfortable with not having a campground and being able to “stealth camp”. This means just pulling off a trail and camping for the night. This allows you to replan on the fly as conditions dictate. I know I can do this, I just have to do it sometime to get over the mental hump.
• You can in fact wear the same kit for two weeks. It’s never really clean but it’s never really dirty. Rinsing it every night is enough as long as it gets a good wash once a week.
• A hotel, friend visit and/or a lay day once a week to do laundry, chill and have some comfortable social interaction is a welcome change (remember for even us mild introverts being social with unfamiliar people, while interesting and stimulating, is a net energy drain). Enlisting friends to do parts of the trip would be ideal.
• Don’t sweat the food thing. Having a great dinner every night is over rated. You can always find something decent to eat and being a little hungry makes a good sandwich for lunch (and saving half for dinner!) taste great, even if it is premade from a convenience store.
• While carrying the Jetboil stove and fuel is a little bougie from a weight standpoint, there are some things (for me anyway) like morning coffee and hot oatmeal (even Starbucks and Quaker instants) that make daily life on the bike feel like “home”.
• Have to insure I have Bran Buds EVERY DAY. I might have to have them shipped to me periodically.
• Don’t overpack off bike clothing. I have found that one pair of each lightweight: shorts, board shorts, underwear, long pants and a nanopuff are plenty of clothes for almost all summer temperatures. And CROCS are THE BOMB.
• Depending on the weather over the length of the trip, I might have to have things shipped to me (and ship things home), otherwise you end up like a pack mule and it’s annoying to have to figure out where to put extra stuff.
• Be prepared to work on all aspects of your bike. I know this and am perhaps even over prepared, but it does take a load of worry away.
• The extra bulk of carrying my electric razor is worth it. Being clean shaven just feels (and I’m sure looks) better to me.
• The Great American Rail Trail is the right route. Staying off roads and keeping the gradients shallow is good when fully loaded.
• I am not trying to prove anything to anyone, I’m not raising money for charity, and I am accountable to no one but myself for this trip. I am doing this as yet another excellent adventure with whatever that may bring. As a result, if there are parts I decide I want to skip, say 200 miles of nothing in Wyoming, then I’ll do that. If I can get a ride that is…

To answer the question I posed at the top of this post Am I kidding myself? The answer is a fairly confident “no”. I think I can do it and of course I will learn a lot more on the way. Let the planning begin. The biggest outstanding questions to me are East to West or West to East, when, and what routes to take on the GART gaps? More on that in the future!